StartupGrind

Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. It is powered by Google for Entrepreneurs. We host monthly events in 200 cities and 85 countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share personal stories and lessons learned on the road to building great companies.

Startup Grind is a connected online and offline network of vibrant startup communities to help fuel innovation, economic growth and prosperity at the local level. While Startup Grind was founded in Palo Alto, California, our extended network of Startup Grind chapters are located around the world. Start a Chapter in your city or school!

Our Values

We believe in making friends, not contacts. We believe in giving, not taking. We believe in helping others before helping yourself. We are truly passionate about helping founders, entrepreneurs and startups succeed. We intend to make their startup journey less lonely, more connected and more memorable.

Team

Zurich Director

David Butler is an advisor, serial networker and social media aficionado. Both David’s strong social presence and his love of testing beta versions of new products coming from Zurich’s many startups, have made him a sought after advisor in many industries. Fully engaged in the Swiss Startup Scene, promoting it's innovation with events, networking, social media, and connecting the dots.

Zurich Co-Director

Co-director of Startup Grind Zurich, startup mentor and judge at MassChallenge Switzerland, member of a Swiss angel investors network, and founder of two startups. Silke has a background in law and finance and worked as a corporate tax consultant at some Big 4 audit companies and at a large corporate before she started blogging about startups on knowwhatandwhere.com and launched her online travel marketplace Local Insiders. She likes nothing better than a great story, and the startup world writes some of the best.

Zurich Co-Director

With a background in enterprise application development, having worked as a freelance CRM/ERP consultant for over 7 years, Tim brings Startup Grind to Zurich, Switzerland to prove that Switzerland is more than cheese and chocolate. Tim is the founder and CEO of Censeo Computing, a Microsoft Bizspark startup that provides Saas front office applications for the financial service sector. An über fan of anything CRM/CXM, he shares his experiences through his blog The CRM Guy Swiss. He is currently lives in Zug, Switzerland with startup CEO wife and two lovely kids.

Regional Director Europe - Central

Steve GLANGE launched the FirstTuesday network in the Greater Region and became board member of the global network. He is also a founding board member of Luxembourg Business Angels Network where he served as board member of EBAN. He was ambassador for XING in Luxembourg. He assisted launching and developing emerging companies and holds various advisory board seats. He is also a UN conference speaker and lecturer at Georgia Tech Institute. He uses his analytical and innovative skills around a good robusto cigar.
Steve is an experienced networked solution broker.